December 7 - The Proxy War in Yemen Between Iran and Saudi Arabia; The Gap Between Military, Hacking Capabilities and Civilian Defense; The Japanese Right Wing's Assault on History

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the failed attempt in Yemen to rescue hostages killed by militants before U.S. Special Forces were able to free an American photojournalist and a South African working for a charity that had already paid a ransom for his release which was due on Sunday. We will speak with an expert on Yemen, Charles Schmitz, the President of the American Institute of Yemeni Studies to get an understanding of how much the government in the capital Sanaa is in control of this divided country that is not just a haven for the so-called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but appears to be caught up in a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Part 2

Then, with North Korea denying involvement in the hacking of Sony Pictures while praising the hacking as “a righteous deed”, we will examine the apparent gap between military hacking capabilities and civilian defenses following the hacking of almost 50,000 Social Security numbers and personal details on movies stars, along with unreleased Sony movies that were made available on pirate sites. Alan Paller, the Director of Research at the SANS Institute, who directs their Internet Storm Center, the early warning system for the Internet and the annual “Greatest Risks in Cyber Security” study, joins us to discuss how vulnerable civilian commercial data is to military-grade attacks and what defensive measures could be taken.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the rewriting of history underway in Japan that is being encouraged by Japan’s right wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who along with ultranationalists, are attacking the leading left-of-center newspaper Asahi Shimbun and their investigative journalist Takashi Uemura who wrote about how Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Dutch and Australian so-called “comfort women” were forced to work in Imperial Army military brothels during World War 11. Thomas Berger, a Professor of International Relations at Boston University and the author of “War, Guilt and World Politics After World War 11” joins us to discuss the Japanese right wing’s assault on history.